HSIB Report On Inaccessibility Of Critical Patient Information In Emergency Situations

When a patient requires emergency care and treatment, it is vital that healthcare providers access information about the patient as quickly as possible.

Today, the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) released a report, identifying multiple factors affecting healthcare providers in obtaining critical patient information in emergency situations. Critical information includes a patient’s name, date of birth, and whether it was suitable for a patient to receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) if their heart stops.

Findings of HSIB report

The HSIB investigated hospitals across England and found among other concerns that hospital staff are not consistently able to access accurate, critical patient information at a patient’s bedside to support decision-making in emergencies.

The report identified that there is no national guidance on how critical patient information at the bedside should be displayed, on both digital and non-digital displays such as whiteboards and posters. Unsurprisingly, it was found that the patient information and how it was displayed at the bedside varied across the hospitals investigated.

Nurse handovers were also found to not always provide the necessary patient information required for staff to care for patients due to how handovers were undertaken. Again, there is no national guidance on how best to undertake patient handovers of care.

Recommendations

The HSIB’s report made a number of important safety recommendations to NHS England and the Royal College of Nursing which include, for NHS England to provide guidance to support the local design and configuration of electronic patient records to ensure patient information is available for staff.

HSIB also recommends that NHS England, during their review of relevant Health Building Notes and Technical Memoranda, include that bedside patient information should be consistently visible across the board.

HSIB has recommended that the Royal College of Nursing develops guidance for ward-based nursing handovers with consideration of how handovers are organised, their content, the environment in which they take place, and the technology needed to support them.

Comment

We welcome the HSIB’s report in providing more clarity on the importance of critical patient information at the bedside.

The report indicates a widescale problem across England in the accessibility and visibility of important patient information at a patient’s bedside and the challenges that healthcare staff face when trying to access and obtain patient information.

National guidance is required to improve the consistency of access to critical patient information across healthcare providers. Not only will this provide clarity to health care staff but improve the efficiency and standard of care and treatment provided to all patients.

Should you wish to read the HSIB report in full, please see here.